In a column published in the Times this week, McBride highlights how imperative it is for the government to ensure the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Bill protects publishers from the negative impact of digital technology on the dissemination of information, news, and opinion.

When passed, the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Bill will give the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) statutory powers and will be a crucial tool for publishers to rebalance their relationships with platforms.

The Bill is expected after Easter (according to PPA government sources) and will empower the DMU by giving it powers for an ex-ante competition regime for the largest digital firms. The Bill will also introduce new consumer law regulations for the selling of subscriptions contracts.

The DMU will be simultaneously writing firm-specific codes for Meta and Google, so engagement with the Unit itself is necessary to ensure that they are prioritising provisions that will benefit members. This includes rebalancing the digital advertising market, guaranteeing publisher access to data, having prior sight and understanding of algorithm payments, and specialist publishers being encompassed by the mechanism that will allow publishers to negotiate with platforms for the value of content.

Next steps:
The PPA will keep members updated and continue to lobby to ensure we are fairly represented as the DMU moves to rebalance the relationship between big tech and publishers.

The PPA will also work to ensure that the new consumer law regulations regarding subscription contracts do not, as far as possible, negatively impact publishers’ subscription businesses.